The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to power reduction in network equipment.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option is an information handling system (IHS). An IHS generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements may vary between different applications, IHSs may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in IHSs allow for IHSs to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, IHSs may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Additionally, some embodiments of information handling systems include non-transient, tangible machine-readable media that include executable code that when run by one or more processors, may cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of methods described herein. Some common forms of machine readable media include, for example, floppy disk, flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, any other magnetic medium, CD-ROM, any other optical medium, punch cards, paper tape, any other physical medium with patterns of holes, RAM, PROM, EPROM, FLASH-EPROM, any other memory chip or cartridge, and/or any other medium from which a processor or computer is adapted to read.
Computer networks form the interconnection fabric that enables reliable and rapid communications between computer systems and data processors that are in both close proximity to each other and at distant locations. These networks create a vast spider web of intranets and internets for handling all types of communication and information. Making all of this possible is a vast array of network switching products that make forwarding decisions in order to deliver packets of information from a source system or first network node to a destination system or second network node. Due to the size, complexity, and dynamic nature of these networks, sophisticated network switching products are often used to implement the interconnection fabric. This can be further complicated through other networking trends such as parallelization.
Many networks utilize parallelization and other techniques to improve the forwarding function between two network nodes. By employing parallelization, redundancy is built into a network so that it is possible that more than one path exists between any two nodes. This provides suitably aware network switching products with the ability to select between the redundant paths to avoid network congestion, balance network loads, or to avoid failures in the network. Parallelization also provides the ability to handle more network traffic between two nodes than is possible when parallelization is not utilized. In some implementations the parallelization is treated in a more formalized fashion in the form of a link aggregation group (LAG) which may bundle multiple network links between two nodes.
Network switching products typically operate at high clock speeds and, as a consequence, tend to consume large amounts of power. As more power is consumed by the network switching products, the cost of operating the information handling systems and the computer networks that use the network switching products increases. The large power consumption also introduces secondary costs to operate the information handling systems and network switching products. The high power consumption typically results in significant heat being generated that should be removed from the rooms housing the information handling systems and network switching devices. This adds to cooling costs. Further, when the heat is not fully removed, the network switching products operate at higher temperature, which tends to decrease the lifetime of each of the network switching products, further adding to the operating costs as the devices are replaced more frequently.
As a result, investment is currently being made to reduce power consumption by network switching products. For example, the IEEE 802.3az standard for energy efficient Ethernet reduces power consumption in individual ports of network switching devices and corresponding network links by defining a low power idle signal that is transmitted between network packets. Other approaches recommend shutting down ports when another device is not connected to the network link on the port or even changing power transmission levels based on the lengths of cables in network links. Further power reduction gains are possible.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide improved network switching products that can reduce power consumption.